NZGuitars.com

Initially i was looking for a prri but then chanced upon a drri for a good price.

It is too "loud" for home use (lol i know, what did i expect right?) I have a baby at home and a couple of flatmates. Well they don't mind at the moment, but yeah, i wouldnt want to push it...

Anyhows, for thove who have experienced using them, are attenuators worth purchasing?

Thanks team.

Buy a Katana man, cheap as chips, great tone, bedroom friendly in the 0.5W mode, gig friendly in the other modes, tubes are great if you get a chance to crank them, otherwise... pointless, archaic technology, with magical pixie dust, that no one in a blind test can tell apart

mugamee wrote:Initially i was looking for a prri but then chanced upon a drri for a good price.

It is too "loud" for home use (lol i know, what did i expect right?) I have a baby at home and a couple of flatmates. Well they don't mind at the moment, but yeah, i wouldnt want to push it...

Anyhows, for thove who have experienced using them, are attenuators worth purchasing?

Thanks team.

I bought a THD Hotplate to use with my Super Reverb. Only used it once then decided I was selling the amp so it's been on the shelf ever since. They do what they're supposed to do. Some attenuators have circuitry to compensate for how the ear perceives sound at different volumes (Tone King). That's pretty clever I think. Spendy, mind.

Should also mention, you can probably pickup a secondhand Katana for the price of a decent attenuator

Swart Night Light get you to levels where there's still sound but the string noise can be louder....

OK for amps up to 22 Watts.

If your amp has a master volume then I think they are kind of pointless

Swap the Jensen C12K in it for a C12Q (6dB less sensitivity).

vintage52 wrote:Swart Night Light get you to levels where there's still sound but the string noise can be louder....

OK for amps up to 22 Watts.

Yes, the Swart sounds the best in my opinion. I have one in my Princeton and it's excellent.

They can be souped up too...I have the large size one for 30 watt plus.

Thanks everyone for your inputs. I was leaning towards the swart night light even before starting this thread- good to hear others having very good experience with this unit.

Just sucks that none of the stores sell these locally.

Torpedo Captor are in stock at the rockshop at the moment. $399.
20 db reduction switch.
Could play your amp through mixer/headphones too if your'e that way inclined. Just need to load up some impulse responses. Great little units.

+1 for Captor

Having tried a few attenuators, taming a big amp to bedroom volumes is always disappointing. Attenuators at band level is a different story.

AMP -> Captor/load -> IR loader -> Monitors sounds good to me, but major investment if you are just jamming out.

Katana is a fraction of the price and sounds o.k at bedroom levels.

willow13 wrote:If your amp has a master volume then I think they are kind of pointless

Speaking as someone who owns two amps with MV and attenuators, I would 100% disagree with this. In both amps, I get very different results. Usually a combination of the two is what gives the best bedroom level output for mine.

chur wrote:+1 for Captor

Having tried a few attenuators, taming a big amp to bedroom volumes is always disappointing. Attenuators at band level is a different story.

AMP -> Captor/load -> IR loader -> Monitors sounds good to me, but major investment if you are just jamming out.

Katana is a fraction of the price and sounds o.k at bedroom levels.

How are the Captors as an attenuator with a speaker cab (or in a combo with the built in speaker)? 20dB attenuation is a lot, but it can mean very different real-world results depending on where in the chain it is and what dB scale is being used.

bender wrote:

chur wrote:+1 for Captor

Having tried a few attenuators, taming a big amp to bedroom volumes is always disappointing. Attenuators at band level is a different story.

AMP -> Captor/load -> IR loader -> Monitors sounds good to me, but major investment if you are just jamming out.

Katana is a fraction of the price and sounds o.k at bedroom levels.

How are the Captors as an attenuator with a speaker cab (or in a combo with the built in speaker)? 20dB attenuation is a lot, but it can mean very different real-world results depending on where in the chain it is and what dB scale is being used.

Sounded o.k to me (didnt go fizzy etc) but Reg18 tried it last so he might have some input. He also tried the built in cab sim which I still haven't tried. The downside is its fixed at that attenuation level, so I keep my BC Unleash around in case I ever need something more flexible. A 15 watt amp with 20db down might not work at a gig, my non MV JMP still seemed loud.
Like always at lower house volumes I find my low watt greenbacks sound better than the GT-75's in a similar enclosure, as I guess they work a little more.

For me the Captor was more of a device for IR use, but seems useful for many things.

My vote goes to UA OX, you can get a pretty sweet cranked amp tone through headphones and its handy for recording and gigs it's all a compromise depends how much good tone and more feel of the amp means to you.